


The Updated Essay On Scans - "Deep Scans"

by pallasite



Series: Behind the Gloves [127]
Category: Babylon 5, Babylon 5 & Related Fandoms
Genre: Backstory, But who knows maybe some day, Canon Compliant, Essays, Fix-It, Gen, Not self-insertion yet, Psi Corps, What do P-ratings mean?, Worldbuilding, telepaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-27 03:27:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15015632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallasite/pseuds/pallasite
Summary: I wish this had been my first essay on the subject.Just as I did with my updated essay on"medium" scans, I now do the same thing again with so-called "deep scans," and clear up what I posted before.I posted the other essays before I had all the information, so what I said was incomplete. This answers all the unanswered questions (I hope).





	The Updated Essay On Scans - "Deep Scans"

**Author's Note:**

> The prologue of _Behind the Gloves_ is [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10153487) \- please read!
> 
> What is this series? Where are the acknowledgements, table of contents and universe timelines? See [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10184558/chapters/22620590).
> 
> If you like _Behind the Gloves_ and would like to send me an email, I can be reached at counterintuitive at protonmail dot com. Do you have questions? Would you like to tell me what you like about this project? Email me!
> 
> I also have an [ask blog](https://behind-the-gloves.tumblr.com/), a [writing blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pallasite-writes), and a "P3 life" Tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/p3-life) with funny anecdotes. :)

To recap:

  * I've already covered both perception of ambient surface thoughts, and so-called "light scans," extensively in earlier essays. That's all correct and I don't have anything to add to it here.


  * Ambient surface thoughts are just that - ambient. That's literally all there is, from a telepath's POV. It takes a telepath more effort  _not_ to notice than to notice surface thoughts (as Byron so correctly and helpfully points out to Garibaldi, who, as always, is being a jerk).


  * What normals call "light scans" is literally just _paying attention_. This probably shouldn't even be called a "scan" at all, because it's just  _paying attention_ , but mundanes, amirite? Everything has to sound exotic and scary. (Most mundanes can't feel someone paying attention to their surface thoughts - it's passive - but some people can, and other telepaths usually can, too. It takes a lot of skill to be able to pay attention to the thoughts to someone who can feel minds, without them feeling you're doing so. But it's rarely necessary, unless we're talking about a telepath hiding from the law, who doesn't want to be detected.)


  * In contrast, when people say a "mid-level" or "medium" scan, they mean an _active_ process by which a telepath is "digging" for information, but for information that's contextually or conceptually close. We're talking about information someone knows, that's not in their immediate surface thoughts, but which is contextually and conceptually related to what's going on, so it's not very "far" behind. More information on this (canon's version vs. realistic) can be found in my essay [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15011084).



Now that I've explained medium scans, what's a "deep scan"?

A so-called "deep scan" is when a telepath digs for information that's not surface thoughts and not conceptually mapped to surface thoughts. i.e. information someone knows, but which they're not thinking about, or thinking about anything related to. This could be _anything else_.

Again, canon's presentation differs from anything realistic.

**Canon**

  * In canon, "deep scans" are very physically painful for the person being scanned. The telepath doing the scan can't make this process _not_ hurt. Even if they really don't want to hurt the other person, the process is _inherently_ very painful (unless the target is unconscious).


  * JMS has offered some junk neuroscience to back this up.


  * Deep scans do work - and work just as well - when someone is unconscious.


  * In canon, there seem to be no limits of any kind as to what kinds of information a telepath could access. No types of information are easier or harder to find or access - it's all the same.


  * In fact, a telepath can even find information the target doesn't have clearly - a telepath can scan a victim of a crime, who doesn't clearly remember his or her attacker, and help them better recover memories of the attack. (There is no explanation how this makes sense when the victim didn't know the attacker in the first place, or never got a good look at the attacker. It only _sort of_ makes sense if they have amnesia about the attack.)


  * **_Canon is using a clumsy "mind as computer" metaphor, even when it's not explicitly described as such, and approaching memories as "files" and scanning as "hacking."_** In canon, deep scanning has no relationship to the telepath's conceptual map or background knowledge - it's purely a computer hacking metaphor. A telepath can find anything at all in the target's mind, no matter the telepath's personal background knowledge or familiarity with the circumstances. Because Telepath.


  * A telepath can also find what he or she is looking for pretty much instantly, whether he or she is a P5 a P12, Because Telepath.


  * And a telepath will never misunderstand what he or she sees in a scan, again, _Because Telepath_.


  * "Deep scanning" even works on aliens, though that may be difficult or stressful on the telepath, at least until he or she becomes familiar with minds of that species.


  * People being scanned (either normals or other telepaths) can't feel what the telepath is looking for - they're just screaming in pain, if they're awake.


  * As with other degrees of "scanning," intense emotions make it easier for a telepath to scan someone.


  * Please don't get me started on how canon describes "blocking a scan" - this seems to be partly a case of "higher P-ratings can block lower P-ratings," but we also see that weak telepaths can block a "casual scan" from a higher-rated telepath (whatever this means... you just stop thinking about that thing when you notice someone is paying attention to you?). Normals, meanwhile, are taught they can block a scan by running songs through their heads, though of course simply changing one's surface thoughts doesn't stop a deep scan at all, as Lyta shows.


  * Oh, and of course, "deep scanning," like "mid-level scanning," is completely illegal, except in cases where telepaths are hired to do so consensually, in the case of dying patients, and in the case of "before and after" scans of prisoners sentenced to "death of personality"... or whenever the Mundane Good Guys need their pet telepath to do this For The Plot.



**Realistic**

  * As with so called "medium" or "mid-range" scans, no, this isn't physically painful for the person it's done to. No one is screaming or wincing in pain - that's still garbage. (I can speculate that it was written that way to emphasize how Bad and Scary and Dangerous telepathy is, and thus to justify the social and legal restrictions on telepaths, but I dunno, I'm really just guessing why the authors chose to tell the story that way.)


  * There are two ways (I know of) this task can be accomplished, which I'm going to call "easier" and "harder."



_Easier_

The "easy" way to accomplish this is to turn it into a so-called "medium," and then proceed as before.

Minds and brains **_are not computers_** and so this is not parallel to computer hacking.

It's a bit more of a guessing game, and that is dependent on the telepath's background knowledge of what to guess for. The telepath wants to know if someone knows X or what they think about X, and X isn't activated in the person's surface thoughts or conceptually mapped to anything nearby, they start actively pinging for things the other person might have associated with X - if they find it, great, proceed to medium, and if they get nothing, there could be nothing there, or they could have picked the wrong things.

If I want to "dig for" where someone went to college, but they're not thinking about anything related and for some reason I can't do any of the other methods (or just ask them... bear with me here, it's a hypothetical), it's going to be a lot harder if I've never heard of the school they went to. If I have heard of the school (or even better, am primed for that referent because I've heard something about that school in the last week), it will be easier.

(The "first person" "I" is also used in theory here because I've never personally done this, though I know "how it works.")

Minds are not computers - information is organized in highly individualized associative maps. The more the telepath knows the other person, or at least their culture, and knows something about the subject matter they're looking for, the better the odds they're going to find what they're looking for, and know what it means when they do. The further out you go from a common conceptual map - say, digging for information with an unfamiliar person from an unfamiliar culture, about unfamiliar subject matter - the higher the chances of failing, or at least not understanding what you find when you do get information, because it doesn't mean anything to you.

(Most telepaths are familiar anyway with seeing information that doesn't make sense - anyone who can reliably see surface thoughts will already be aware that large amounts of stuff people around them are thinking makes no sense to them, because they have no context for it. So someone might get the gist of it, but the details, the "in jokes," and the things they have no referent for in their internal maps will not make a lot of sense. _**Telepathy works by associations and meaning, not by "data," which is also why numbers and abstract, meaningless symbols are the hardest to see.**_ )

So in with the "easier" method, there's a lot of guessing, but with practice, you learn to be strategic.

(And while strong emotions would help with either surface thoughts or "mid-level" scans, because that would indicate a strong conceptual/associative map, they're not going to be of help here unless we're talking about emotions _generated_ as a result of what was pinged for. Being in a strong emotional state _about something else_ would be unlikely to simplify finding unrelated information.)

Downsides: As with "medium" scans in the last essay, since this is a variation on that, the person being scanned may know what's going on. If they're a telepath, they'll feel it happening, and if they're not, they might notice memories popping into their head that are not related to the present context. (Some people's minds are scattered like that anyway, and some people's minds aren't.)

With the second method, they won't have memories popping up into their minds, but it's harder.

_Harder_

A more advanced skill would be digging through someone's memories for certain information, _without_ calling anything up into a more active state and following the maps. (The limitations of having/lacking a common conceptual map, however, still apply. The telepath still has to guess what to look for, based on known or guessed conceptual maps, and still has to understand what he or she sees.)

This method is a lot more work.

While in theory this way could result in the target not knowing this is going on, it's also more stressful for the telepath. The target may also feel dizzy/lightheaded, or a little disoriented.

I don't see how any of this could work on someone who is actually unconscious, because by definition, they're unconscious. If there's some way to do this, I don't know about it.

**Author's Note:**

> NO BLEEDING OUT OF ORIFICES ([nosebleeds, etc.](http://archive.is/LXC5O)).


End file.
